Ceuta and Melilla's commercial customs with Morocco to open next week

The Ceuta and Melilla commercial customs are scheduled to reopen on Wednesday, January 25, “unless there is a last-minute change,” according to Spanish newspaper El Pais.

According to El Pais, which cites Spanish government sources, the opening is scheduled a week before the high-level meeting, which will take place in Rabat on February 1 and 2, and that will be attended by the head of the Spanish government Pedro Sanchez and a dozen Spanish ministers.

The Melilla customs office was closed by Morocco in August 2018, while Ceuta has never had regular land passage of goods. For now, the capacity that these two commercial customs offices has not yet been revealed.

The opening of commercial customs between the two Spanish enclaves and the kingdom was one of the main points of the April 7 joint roadmap, when Sanchez visited Morocco.

While the Joint Declaration does not mention Ceuta and Melilla explicitly, it states that both countries agree on “the full normalization of the movement of people and goods will be restored in an orderly manner, including the appropriate mechanisms of customs and people control on land and sea.”

The government delegation in Ceuta had previously mentioned plans of a “regional customs” passage for vehicles up to 3.5 tons, vans and pickup trucks.

However, Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares denied that the transit of goods will be restricted, although he admitted that the opening will be done in a “gradual and orderly” way. “We will move forward in stages on a solid and satisfactory model,” he assured El País in November.

The overall plans for Ceuta and Melilla, approved last October by the Council of Ministers, call for an investment of 711 million euros over four years.

About 1.5 million euros will be invested in the new customs office in Ceuta, with an area of some 300 square meters, where a prefabricated module has been installed for the time being.